2018: A triumphant year for Telly

January 8th, 2019

As we leap into 2019, we'd love to share some of our greatest successes and stories from yesteryear.

2018 saw a range of shows performing at their best ever on ITV. We rallied the nation with a massive 24.3m viewers watching the England semi final, and come Christmas time I'm A Celebrity returned with its largest ever launch audience, consolidating at 13.7m viewers, it's fair to say it was a triumphant year for ITV!

ITV had its highest share of viewing since 2009 and the highest share growth of any channel, growing by 1.5pp year on year. It was also the only channel to buck the trend in viewing - being the only channel to grow in volume this year.

ITV continues to attract the largest share of 16-34 year olds, who continue to tune in to the likes of Love Island and World Cup, proving the power of live TV is well and truly stronger than ever.

Saturday Night Takeaway had its best performing series ever with 8.5m viewers and a 38% share, up on the last series by +0.6m viewers and +1 share point.

Vera had its best performing series ever with 8.4m viewers and 30% share, showing that her trusty followers are more gripped than ever with the evolving story lines of this thrilling drama since it's first launch in 2015.

Love Island helped ITV2 achieve its biggest audience ever for both individuals and 16-34s! This series of Love Island averaged an incredible 4.0m viewers with a 17% share

Love Island partnered with a record breaking 11 brands across the series. Superdrug, Love Island's headline sponsor, integrated viewer selfies into the idents and benefited from a 16% rise in profits showing the raw power of partnerships TV & VOD advertising can offer.

21% of Corrie episodes in 2018 delivered shares in excess of 40%. On top of this, 30%of episodes have brought in more than 8 million viewers a night. Storylines have proven really appealing to younger viewers, with share of viewing for 16-34s up11% year on year. The Aiden storyline brought in Corrie's highest male 16-34 share since 2004 at 53%.

Commercially, ITV launched Project 84 in collaboration with CALM, which saw the creation of 84 statues, representing real male suicide victims, which stood of ITV's iconic studios. The campaign got the nation talking about male suicide thanks to This Morning's coverage and Harry's Grooming for men who funded the campaign. This campaign went on to win multiple industry awards and is some of our most ambitious work yet, showing the real force for good which TV can bring to our everyday lives, using it's enormous platform to create change at a national level.